Quick Guide – Basic Setup
D. Click on the down arrow for the Output and
select Headphones option.
Output identifies the different ways you can
channel the output of VirtualDJ. Headphones
allow you to split the output signals so you can
have a Master Out to go to your amps/speaker
and Headphones Out for Pre-Fader Listening
(PFL). With PFL you are able to listen to the
track you want to cue or prepare to play next
while not being audible to the crowd in the
Master Out.
E. Leave the Output options on the default
[Master: Left chan / Headphones: Right chan]
F. Soundcard allows you to pick the card type you
will be using. We will start with the Mono-Split
option for use with your internal sound card.
G. Leave the Soundcard choices on the defaults.
[Depending on the brand of your sound card the choices may differ from
the one pictured.]
H. Click OK to store these settings.
Now plug your speakers into the Left (white)
channel of the Y-splitter and your Headphones
into the Right (red) channel of the
Y-splitter.
At this point you should be ready to use VirtualDJ in
a very basic sound configuration and typically the
ideal configuration for most ‘bedroom’ DJs.
Time to have some fun …
Load a couple tracks and press PLAY!
Now, The Next Level !
External Mixer setup …
Since you would be preview/cueing your mixes from
the mixer, you can use the previous Mono-
separated configuration to have each deck assigned
to a dedicated output.
If you simply change the Headphones output option
to External Mixer, you will see that instead of Left:
Master / Right : Headphones; you get Left
deck:Left Chan and Right Deck:Right Chan. This
will provide a MONO signal to each channel of the
mixer.
Though it is not necessary (as described above), it
is more ideal that you have a multi-channel sound-
card so you can assign each deck to a dedicated
output on the card. By having the multi-channel
soundcard you can achieve a STEREO output from
each deck.
Most desktop systems have a 4.1 Surround sound
card in them, so we will look at that configuration
for setting up the external mixer. For laptop users
you will need to use the Mono-separated setup if
you do not use an external card.
There are more ‘Professional Grade’ cards on the
market that will provide more flexibility in connec-
tions to the mixer. We look at these type of cards
in the Timecode Setup section.
* See brand names like ESI, Hercules, M-Audio, ECHO, etc. for
various multi-channel sound cards to choose from.